Jonathon Booth is a historian of democracy, race, law, and policing in the United States. He teaches courses including Criminal Law, American Legal History, and Law and History of Policing. Jonathon's research reaches from the mid-nineteenth century to the present and focuses on the practical impact of law and its enforcement - in other words, how the law tangibly affects Americans. His recent articles include: A New Satanic Panic, 36 Yale J. L. & Feminism 102 (2025); Policing after Slavery: Race, Law, and Resistance in Atlanta, 96 Colo. L. Rev. 1 (2025); and The Cycle of Delegitimization: Lessons From Dred Scott on the Relationship Between the Supreme Court and the Nation, 51 UC Law Constitutional Quarterly 5 (2024). He is currently working on an article titled The Legal Architecture of Emancipation, describes the full range of new laws passed by Southern states after Reconstruction that, although formally race neutral, served to cement white political and economic power. He is also at the early stages of a book project titled Policing the Rural South, 1850-2020. Before coming to Colorado, Jonathon was the Legal History Fellow at the Harvard History Design Studio and clerked for the Hon. Barrington D. Parker on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and the Hon. Kevin McNulty on the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. He received his Ph.D. in History from Harvard University in 2021 and his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 2019. He received his B.A. in History and Economics, joint honours, from McGill University.
keywords
Policing; Emancipation; Reconstruction
Teaching
courses taught
LAWS 5503 - Criminal Law
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Spring 2025
Studies statutory and common law of crimes and defenses, the procedures by which the law makes judgments as to criminality of conduct, the purposes of criminal law, and the constitutional limits upon it.
LAWS 6708 - LAWS:
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Fall 2024
Explores special topics in law. May be repeated up to 12 total credit hours.
LAWS 7155 - American Legal History
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Fall 2025
Explores the history of American law from the Constitution to the twenty-first century Global War on Terror. It covers topics including the law of slavery and freedom, the development of civil rights law, business regulation and deregulation, the origins of the administrative state, and the rise of the conservative legal movement. Throughout, the course emphasizes the ways that political and economic change shapes the law and the practical effect law has on social movements.
LAWS 8145 - Seminar: History and Law of American Policing
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Fall 2025
Explores the development of policing in the United States since the nineteenth century. We will examine a number of related topics including professionalization, strikebreaking, order maintenance policing, racial profiling, police brutality, federal law enforcement, militarization, and sheriffs. We will also discuss the process of suing police under � 1983, including barriers such as qualified immunity.
